“I’m going to blow the plane up” A Malaysia Airlines flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur returned to the Australian airport 20 minutes after taking off on Wednesday night after a passenger attempted to enter the cockpit. The man reportedly threatened to blow the plane up with a bomb before he was tackled by passengers and crew members and tied up with seat belts.

Andrew Leoncelli, a former AFL star, told The Age the man was carrying a large black cylindrical object which looked like speaker.

He said the man was “screaming” at the air hostess that he “needed to see the captain”.

“I’ve got a bomb and I’m going to f—— blow the plane up,” Mr Leoncelli quoted the man as saying.
A witness on board, named only as Andy, told the Australian 3AW radio: We literally took off, ten minutes into the take off, and I was sitting in business class 4A seat, and I could hear this idiot saying that he wanted to go in and see the pilot.

The staff were saying ‘sit back down sir, sit back down sir’. He goes, ‘no, I’m not going to sit back down – I’m going to blow the plane up

Malaysia Airlines stressed that the flight had not been hijacked.

The plane landed safely and the man was apprehended by airport security, said Malaysia Airlines, which is still recovering from two major airline disasters in recent years.

 

Read more: Telegraph